The Challenge: Exes 2 (Well, kind of) Team Breakdown

Basketball
Baseball
Football
The Challenge

Those are my four favorite sports, in order. The Challenge is a sport, you ask? Yes, it’s a goddamn sport. You climb a glacier in negative zero temperatures on no sleep and tell me these aren’t athletes playing a sport for cash.

Back are Bananas, CT, Wes, and everybody else we just simply cannot get enough of. The theme this season is Exes 2 and there are some pretty interesting sub plots to look forward to while we wet our appetite with the newest Real World season starting on December 16th (Seriously though, look out for me in the background of some of the shots. They lived down the street from the restaurant I work at. I saw them probably 100 times #MyBigBreak).

This season is going to feature two now deceased cast members and four players from outside the RW/RR family for the first time. It’s going to be interesting to see how the producers and editors handle the moments when Knight gets all Knight-y about it and turns into his “get under every person’s skin within a 10 foot radius” alter-ego. Are they obligated to edit things in a way where he doesn’t look too bad? Maybe there’s some ultimately redeeming moment for him this season that, in retrospect with all that’s happened, kind of wraps up his time on our television sets and in our lives. The way they edit Diem will assuredly be in a way that makes her look like the angel that she was and is. Especially after the way they did her dirty on Rivals 2 (My full thoughts on Diem’s passing can be found here). So let’s take a look at the teams, how they came to be exes (Some reaaalllll stretches here), and make a projection on how they finish.

Jordan and Sarah – Jordan and Sarah are “exes” in the same way that the girl you once drunkenly made out with at a bar four years ago are “exes”. They played a steamy game of tonsil hockey in a closet on Rivals 2, but the romance was abruptly stopped when Sarah’s curse reared it’s ugly head when Trishelle walked out on the show and brought Sarah’s game with her. This team is my pick to click. This is MTV throwing Sarah a bone after screwing her over for three straight seasons now. The pu pu platter of Vinny/Katelynn/Devyn/Trishelle she’s had to deal with is up there with the Bears defense in the Awful Hall Of Fame. I hope Jordan falling into the “second challenge after doing well as a rookie and run around like you run things” trap humbled him, because he’s this close to being on my Dunzo List

.

Bananas and Nany – The GOAT and The Hurricane. First off, this is a completely 100% made up team. If you go and look on Vevmo(warning, this link is super spoiler heavy), the wizards over there who seem to know everything about the upcoming Challenge before it even happens, basically said Nany made a comment about how MTV told her they were going to make-up a story line about them being exes. Had to get Bananas on the show somehow though right? The GOAT is going for his second back-to-back title runs, and there’s no reason to think he can’t do it again. You know how basically every great athlete has a cheesy video montage on Youtube with some super cliche song? Well Bananas doesn’t quite have that, but he has whatever the hell this is

Wes and Theresa – I am and always will be #TeamKenny, but man Wes is just so necessary for these shows. The character he becomes during the Challenge is basically a wrestling heel. He’s just in it to be cocky and hated, and he’s GREAT at it. Theresa, on the other hand, will always have a piece of my heart after she absolutely sonned CT during their Free Agents basketball game.

Nothing is more attractive than a girl you could take up to the park, run two’s for an hour with and never leave the court, then go home holding hands wiping sweat off each other and sharing a Gatorade while a Wale mixtape comes out of the cars speaker system. That’s the dream. That’s the dream for everyone right? I’ve always thought Theresa would win one of these some day, and now that she’s paired up with Wes, maybe this is the year.

Zach and Jonna – Zach is a gigantic child. Gigantic being the operative word there. These two had a fling that started on Battle Of The Seasons and it had 100% to do with Jonna’s obnoxious need to always have a man. I sounded like a salty ex girlfriend right there, let me back up. Zach and Jonna’s fling was a love affair sent from the chick flick universe to change the way we view the very essence of romance. In all seriousness, Jonna is kind of sneaky good at these things and not a single guy there is going to want to go against Zach who is actually a Terminator T-800 model sent from the future to destroy male competitors on reality television. These two cruise to the Final because nobody will beat Zach in an elimination. Winning the Final though…..

Knight and Jemmye – I’m going to put my enormous, bordering on the edge of creepy, crush on Jemmye aside for a second and just keep this about Knight. I remember Knight from his Real World season in New Orleans. He was a button pusher then, as he’s been a button pusher on The Challenge. But the real Knight, or the real TV Knight that we know, was on his Real World season. He was fun, caring, and really genuinely would have killed someone on behalf of Jemmye. He did and said things to piss of the rest of the cast, but it was never because he wanted to be a shitty person inside, he was just bored. He was a funny, good-hearted, who clearly had his own personal demons just like the rest of us who played a villain role on the Challenges to break up the monotony. Love him or hate him, Knight knew his role on the TV show he knew he was filming and he was great at it. And in a strange way, you kind of have to admire that. Rest in peace Knight, you will be missed

Dustin and Jessica – These two had a high school relationship on television in their mid twenties. I hated Jessica and her overly-large mouth from the moment she showed up in Portland and unlike many people, I’ve grown to dislike her even more on the two Challenges she’s been on. It really does suck that Dustin got paired up with her. These two are going to be so bad at politic side of the game, that it doesn’t matter what they do, they have no shot. None, zilch, zero. Bold Prediction: They will go home first.

Is bold the right word?

Leroy and Nia – 76% chance this is my favorite team within the first five minutes. Nia is the partner Leroy deserves. Leroy is everyone’s favorite, I’ve never heard anyone speak a negative word about him. There’s a lot of unlikable qualities about a lot of the cast members of The Challenge, but I don’t think he has one of them. It’s all going to come down to which side they chose when the inevitable CT/Bananas/Wes vs. Jordan/Zach/Johnny Reilly alliances take shape.

Johnny Reilly and Averey – These two hooked up all over Portland during their Real World season, and even ended up living together afterwards. Rumors abound though of Averey being unfaithful which led to him throwing up the dueces at her. After Johnny hooked up with Nany on Free Agents I’m really really really really looking forward to the OMG BFFs/”Uh uh, this bitch”/Drunken shouting match sequence we’re bound to get between Averey and Nany. Girls do that 100% of the time, it never ever fails.

Jay and Jenna – Ok so I don’t really understand what these two could possibly bring to the table. They were the two most forgettable cast members on a surprisingly great Real World season, and I honestly don’t understand what MTV was thinking here. Yawn. Was Aneesa really not available? You couldn’t just bring some random ex from her past to be her partner? I hope I’m wrong though, The Challenge has changed my view on Real World-ers before.

Thomas and Hailey – The sacrificial lambs. Here’s how their first challenge is going to go. They get picked to go within the first couple rounds. They’ll disqualify themselves, looking really bad in the process. They’ll get voted into the first elimination against whichever veteran team accidentally screws up (happens every year), and proceed to get trounced in whatever quirky elimination game they come up with next. It’s just so obvious. It’s a Hank Greenberg lead pipe lock. Book it.

Adam and Brittany/JJ and Simone – So I won’t even pretend I’ve seen an episode of Are You The One? but I find the fact that these people have been injected into the Challenge Universe without having to go through the minor leagues really interesting. They’re an outside hire and that can go a lot of different ways. I needed to know more about these four people so I did some Google digging, and came up with this and well, this

Those were the first two things I found, and I need not look any further. Anything named Pound Town Confessions must be shared with all worldwide. I’m absolutely on the bandwagon of anyone that’s participated in something called Pound Town Confessions.

It will be an intriguing case in group-think throwing these people who will automatically be labeled as outsiders. Will their personalities be able to win people over or will they just be outcast-ed and become almost a rallying point for the Real Worlder’s to join together to exterminate these alien invaders? That’s in the top five of story lines I’m looking forward too this season.